What thirty executives said.

Edition 03 of 'Reputation means business' came from a room of thirty senior executives across ten countries. An hour and a half on executive reputation: what shifts at the top, what gets in the way, and what the people in that room had been sitting with for longer than they let on.

In this edition, I share with you the takeaways from a strategic workshop I ran with thirty executives earlier this month. We spent an hour and a half on executive reputation: how it works at senior level, what changes at the top, what gets in the way and where to focus.

What made it particularly interesting was the shared experiences and challenges. People said things out loud that they had been sitting with for a while. I share some of these conversations today.

When the company name speaks first.

One executive said it clearly. They had spent twenty years at the same company. When someone looked them up or they met new people, the big company name did the work. They did not have to think about it.

When the context changes, you have to build that context yourself. Which sounds daunting, until you look at what is actually there. The expertise did not leave with the badge.

The relationships built over twenty years are still yours. The problems you solved, the rooms you were trusted in, the perspective you developed, none of that disappeared. The shortcut is what disappeared: the brand that did the first ten seconds of work before you said a word.

That moment forces a question: what do people know about you and your area of expertise that has nothing to do with where you worked? If you sit with that question honestly, you will find more than you expected.

The story is already there, it needs to be told to a slightly wider room, with more intention than was ever needed before.

The simples questions are often the hardest.

If someone introduced you today in one sentence, what would they say? Then the harder one: what would you say? It looks straightforward until you realise you may not have thought about it yet in clear terms.

One participant said they did not have that sentence readily available, and it is more common than it sounds. You have spent years building your expertise, so how could it fit into one sentence?

That is where clarity is crucial. When someone wants to recommend you, they work with what they have. If the sentence is not clear, they find one that is close enough. They fill the gaps, make it work in the moment, and over time, that distorted version of you starts to circulate.

You cannot control what people say about you, but you can make sure that what you put out there is clear enough to be repeated as accurately as possible so when someone asks "do you know someone who can do this?", the answer is you.

The risk of sounding like everyone else.

AI was always going to come up, especially around visibility and content. One participant said, correctly, that at their level the risk is sounding scripted or fake. Another described his approach: they write the draft first, then use AI to see what they could add, then fold in only what is useful.

From experience, the biggest risk is handing the full creative process over. I see it more and more from CxOs at well-known companies and brands themselves. The way it is written reads unnatural. You have certainly seen this too, scrolling past your feeds, as more and more people disengage from that type of content. It is even more harmful in the long run in terms of credibility.

Your perspective and experience are unique. Sharing how you think and how you solve problems, even imperfectly, is far more valuable than a perfectly polished and soulless message.